“My first school wasn’t the right fit. That was clear within a few months. About two weeks before the 2022-23 academic year began, I decided to change course.

In high school, I did competitive speech and debate all four years. I was the first two-time champion of the Utah Tournament of Excellence and earned multiple scholarships for the University of Utah debate team.

When I realized I needed a change, I reached out to the director of the John R. Park Debate Society to ask if my scholarships were still valid and if he could help me bypass the admissions timeline. He said absolutely, and that’s how I arrived.

Through participating in the Business Scholars program, I decided to major in finance with an emphasis in advanced financial analysis.

Being a woman in the finance program is genuinely difficult. In upper-division courses, I’m often one of maybe five women in a class of 30. One professor who really championed me was Jeffrey Coles. In his honors valuation course, I was the first person to speak out loud in class, and as the semester went on, he regularly called on me to share my thoughts on the casework. This encouragement helped me overcome the impostor syndrome that can come with being a woman in a male-dominated field.

My first internship was a study abroad with Eccles Global: three months in Barcelona as a consulting intern for the Spanish Red Cross. That was my first time in continental Europe, and it sparked something. I have come to see the world as my ‘learning laboratory.’ Over the last two years, I’ve visited 11 countries and completed three solo trips. I can land in a country where I don’t speak the language and find my way. That’s not a small thing.

In addition to my internship in Spain, I spent a summer at the Korn Ferry Institute and then two summers at Goldman Sachs. When I graduate, I will be joining their Asset & Wealth Management division full-time. Thanks to my internships, many of the people on that team have already been mentors to me.

The most formative realization I’ve had is that so many doors open simply by making a change: a campus, a major or a friend group. I remember being incredibly intimidated by college life. I’m leaving with real self-confidence, both in my ability to say ‘yes’ to opportunities and to say ‘no’ to environments that aren’t good for me. I’ve learned I’m more resilient than I thought.”

— Madeleine Felix, Class of 2026, B.S. in Finance, advanced financial analysis emphasis, David Eccles School of Business, from Perry, Utah